All entries on SUNDANCE 2026

[SUNDANCE 2026] “Wounded Souls in Stephanie Ahn’s Bedford Park” by Nirris Nagendrarajah

Stephanie Ahn (director), Bedford Park, 2025. 121 min.

I did not like Celine Song’s Past Lives (2023), not for lack of desire to do so. The trailer moved me to tears.

Yet when I finally watched the film, I found it far less concerned with the impossibility of desire than with the affirmation of shared humanity, and the characters’ privilege diminished the stakes of its ambitions.

It is inevitable that Bedford Park, written and directed by Stephanie Ahn, will be placed in conversation with Past Lives. In truth, it benefits from the comparison.

Like the earlier film, Bedford Park returns to its characters’ childhoods, where the narrow gap between neighbouring apartments allows their younger selves to form an anonymous friendship. The memory is later revived, creating the impression of collapsing time and an encroaching sense of fate.

As Past Lives invoked the concept of “in-yun” to bind its characters, Bedford Park turns to “han”, described as “a Korean cultural concept describing deep, collective sorrow and unresolved grief.”

It is Audrey, played by Moon Choi, who chiefly embodies this “han”. An overworked nurse on the brink of psychological exhaustion, she must care for her mother after a car accident. Alongside her is Eli, portrayed by Son Suck, a former wrestler fleeing a recent past marked by a violent stepbrother.

Both are profoundly wounded. Audrey finds that memories of her father’s alcohol-fuelled abuse resurface, complicating her understanding of her mother as victim. Eli feels that his past mistakes have foreclosed the possibility of an autonomous future.

That they find one another, after several false starts, and forge a connection distinct from the others depicted in the film, one in which defences are lowered and vulnerability permitted, feels entirely organic.

That Eli retreats whenever intimacy deepens, that Audrey persistently extends her hand, that circumstances deteriorate until even love appears insufficient, and that the film refuses the consolation of closure together render it a persuasive, sensual, and serious work. It understands longing as a lived experience rather than a conceptual device. Its receipt of the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Debut Feature at Sundance seems justified. On occasion, award committees do recognise merit.

^{How to cite: Nagendrarajan, Nirris. “Wounded Souls in Stephanie Ahn’s Bedford Park.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 12 Feb. 2026, chajournal.com/2026/02/12/bedford-park.}

Nirris Nagendrarajah is a writer and culture critic from Toronto. In addition to Metatron Press, his work has appeared in MUBI Notebook, Little White Lies, The Film Stage, Ricepaper, Notch, Polyester, Intermission, Ludwigvan, and In the Mood Magazine. He is currently part of Neworld Theatre’s Page Turn program and at work on a novel. [All contributions by Nirris Nagendrarajah.]